Sounds like Microsoft won't be evoking any fond memory of blue screens of death

News continues to trickle out about the upcoming version of Microsoft Corp.'s (MSFT) Windows operating system. Set to land later this year, builds of the new OS, code-named "Blue" have trickled out to select partners -- which in turn has led to leaks.

The latest news to emerge comes courtesy of Roman L. (handle:AngleWZR), a developer who has been analyzing the leaked builds. He notes on his Twitter that the latest leaked build -- build 9375 -- has a text string in the lower right-hand corner labeling it "Windows 8.1".

One other minor piece of Windows 8.1/Blue related news courtesy of Mr. Thurrott's WinSuperSite : apparently Microsoft has tweaked the Search Charm in its latest builds. Where Windows 8 made you pick between "Apps, Settings, or Files" , the new search does away with that, allowing you to start typing immediately. Instead of pre-selecting the category, it simply clumps the results by category.

[Image Source: WinSuperSite]

ZDNet Windows blogger Mary Jo Foley says that Windows 8.1 should hit RTM in August. A beta is rumored to be slotted for Microsoft's June BUILD conference.

Name one (honestly curious)? The search in Win7 is better than in Win8 (although thankfully they've just told us that Win8 search is being fixed), but it has nothing to do with covering up windows (in fact having a larger area to view search results is not bad at all).

quote: Why? I can only see this feature being needed if someone is totally disorganized.

I disagree. Being disorganized is only a problem when you *don't* have efficient search. Otherwise the time that you spend manually organizing things is essentially wasted.

Google said it best with Gmail: Don't sort. Search.

I don't even try to organize the thousands of messages in my Gmail account. I just rely on their fast and accurate search function when I want to find something. And it works. There's no reason for the same concept to not be applied in the desktop PC context.

You are dead on. I use search in Outlook religiously. I have a handful of folders with quick steps associated with them to set a reminder, categorize and move the item into a folder for things that need action on. Those are "working" folders. When finished with something I move it to a completed folder. General communication all stays in the inbox. That's the extent of my organization of email. Files are much the same way. I wouldn't want the web categorized like Yahoo once tried. I search for data. I approach my own data the same way.

Our SharePoint site is optimized for search for the same reason. Network shares run Windows Search services so my workstation connects back to the server's index. It works great.

The idea that search is only for the disorganized is crazy. It's for people who know how to work efficiently. What if an email applies to 3 different categories? Do you save it in 3 folders? If not then you have to try to remember where you saved it. Same for files, local, sharepoint or network.

Merging the 3 categories into one search is really the only thing I think search in Win 8 needed. Start Menu or Start Screen, when I'm searching for data that's what I'm focused on. I don't see the big deal.

And when I'm searching the network I typically do it from explorer anyway.